Baby-in-laundry case: Blair's sympathy

The Prime Minister Tony Blair today moved to defuse a new row over the state of the NHS following the revelation that a dead baby had been boiled in a laundry wash after his body was lost by a hospital.

The Prime Minister Tony Blair today moved to defuse a new row over the state of the NHS following the revelation that a dead baby had been boiled in a laundry wash after his body was lost by a hospital.

The Prime Minister's official spokesman said there was great sympathy for the family of James Kelly Fernandez, whose body was discovered on the conveyor belt of a laundry in Brixton, south London, after it went missing from a hospital mortuary.

The 1lb 1oz boy died an hour after his birth 17 weeks early at Queen Mary's Hospital in Sidcup, Kent, on November 17. His mother Amaia Fernandez, 25, had been 23 weeks into a pregnancy complicated by the blood disease toxoplasmosis.

His body was found on December 14, the day after undertakers calling at the hospital for his body sparked a hunt for his whereabouts.

Prime Minister Tony Blair's official spokesman said: "This has clearly been very distressing for the parents, following on from their bereavement. The Trust has apologised and we obviously sympathise greatly with what they have had to go through.

"It is worth pointing out, in turn, that whilst this doesn't excuse in any way what has happened, I think it is worth remembering that this is an exception, not the rule, and the NHS on the whole delivers very, very high quality care in relation to maternity services and children's services - but that is not to say that something didn't go wrong here, because it clearly did."

The news of the incident came as Mr Blair came under pressure at Commons question time over the health service for the second week running.

Mr Blair denied that accident and emergency departments across the country were in "crisis" after he was pressed by Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith.

Mr Duncan Smith said that the number of patients seen by a doctor in A&E within an hour had fallen from 75% under the Conservatives to around 50% now and claimed the service was in "acute and chronic crisis".

The most recent analysis showed that by March this year at least 75% of casualty patients should spend less than four hours in A&E, rising to 100% by 2004, Mr Blair said.

Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy also weighed into the row, asking: "Why is it that since your party came to power the number of cancelled NHS operations has gone up by 50%?"

Mr Blair told him: "Although it is true to say that the number of operations cancelled are unacceptably high, it is also true to say that 19 out of 20 operations happen on time in the way that they are supposed to."

Meanwhile James's father, Patrick Kelly, 36, from Swanley, Kent, said his his Spanish-born girlfriend had returned to her home country to get medical care and to see her family.

"There are all these tragedies, all these things you see in the paper how people have suffered at the hands of the NHS," he told GMTV.

"There is always a spin, always someone to stick up and say this should have happened or that should have happened, we have made a mistake, we are looking into it, we are going to change things.

"But why do they have to be changed after the event? Why can't people see these things before the event? It is just common sense."

Queen Mary's offered its "sincere condolences" and apologised "unreservedly" for the incident.

Chief executive Helen Moffatt said: "It is just unbelievable and very distressing, for me personally, for the organisation and for the staff who work in the mortuary.

"This kind of incident has never happened before at Queen Mary's, they are a dedicated group of staff who take pride in what they do and we have all felt the blow.

"But clearly the blow that the family has had has been huge - we cannot imagine how they must be feeling, we can only do everything we can to support them at this time."

She said James's body "may well" have been placed on the floor of the mortuary while a member of staff was dealing with undertakers.

One of the factors in his disappearance was that the laundry basket within the mortuary was next to a cabinet where the bodies of babies were stored, she said.

Small babies at that time had been wrapped in sheets, she added.

The linen bag had now been moved to a different area, she said, and the mortuary was using a separate fridge for the bodies of babies. They were now kept in opaque boxes and were no longer wrapped in sheets.

Mortuary staff had been told they must use a trolley to transfer babies in and out of the storage area.